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the opening track on raise the pressure shows a marked difference in sound to the ruthless, staccato beats on the first lp, but it’s equally polished, if not more so. johnny wrote the music, and bernard added the words and recorded his vocal in one afternoon. it’s a brilliant song about neglect and disappointment, with a groaning, injured guitar solo similar to the one in get the message.

bernard: “it’s about a young man who lives with his father, it’s a one-parent family but the parent is a male. his father’s a drunk, he beats him up and it’s about getting away from him because he can see it’s bad, but underneath there’s a tug of love. there’s a tie he can’t break. it’s about not respecting someone but being tied to them in an illogical way. i wrote the song and decided that was what it was about afterwards. if you decide beforehand it’s a bit like school essays.”

johnny: “our song forbidden city came about when i was working on another song, freefall. those who know them will know that they are two very different pieces of music. we were programming, it was quiet, there was no music playing for one or two minutes and in this break i heard the song in my head with its whole chord progression, rhythm and refrain. i was worried that i would lose the idea, so i grabbed a guitar, plugged it in and let the dat run. my only hope was that this magic wouldn’t disappear.”

in interviews with noise (’94) and melody maker (’95), sumner referred to the song as the forbidden city, indicating that this was its original title. as well as illustrating how long raise the pressure took to record, these dates also invalidate the reputation electronic had of being an occasional side-project: they were active in every year of the decade except ’93, and during their mid-’90s period they produced over 80 minutes of music, the equivalent of two albums.